Chapter Text
The dawn over Shinjuku brought no comfort. The sunlight, a pale and anemic orange, began to filter through the skyscrapers, bathing the rooftop where the world's strongest sorcerer remained curled in a ball.
Satoru Gojo hadn't moved all night. His eyes, those Six Eyes that processed every particle of energy in the universe, were red, swollen, and dry. No tears remained, only a crust of salt upon his cheeks and a constant stinging that reminded him he was still alive, however much he wished otherwise.
He felt numb. It wasn't just the cold of the concrete or the early morning wind; it was a numbness born in the center of his chest, spreading like poison through his veins.
The void he felt was now utterly overwhelming and absolute.
Slowly, Satoru stretched his stiff fingers. His phone, lying a few feet away next to some now-dry and grime-covered mochi, vibrated once more. The screen lit up, showing an endless succession of notifications.
(Yesterday)
•Sugu♡ (9:00 PM): Satoru? I’m still at Yaga’s office. Did something happen with the mission? Answer me. ✓
•Sugu♡ (9:40 PM): Why haven’t you come back? Ijichi says you finished hours ago... You’re scaring me. ✓
•Sugu♡ (11:00 PM): Satoru, please. Just tell me you’re okay. ✓
•Shoko (11:10 PM): Gojo, you idiot, Suguru was about to kick my door down thinking you were with me. If you’re wandering off somewhere, let us know, moron. ✓
(Today)
•Sugu♡ (6:05 AM): Fine, fine, I get it. I know I ignored you the last time we spoke, and I know we haven’t spent much time together, that I’ve been neglecting you and right now I haven't been the best boyfriend in the world, but please, please, just tell me you’re okay. ✓
Satoru looked at the messages from Suguru and Shoko with expressionless eyes. Yes, it was true; he and Suguru had been somewhat distant these past few weeks, and perhaps he had ignored it, trying to pretend the problem didn't exist. But now, with what he had discovered, Satoru finally understood that distance.
There were clearly more than a hundred unread messages, but Satoru didn't feel the strength to keep reading words filled with false concern and affection.
Satoru let out a small, bitter laugh before snapping his phone shut, unable to keep looking at the messages. He didn't want to read any more because he knew that if he did, his heart would finally turn to dust.
Looking at the increasingly bright sky, Satoru felt the impulse to go wherever Suguru was, grab him by the shoulders, and scream, demanding an explanation. But fear, a primal fear he never thought he would possess again after his near-death at the hands of Toji Fushiguro, held him back.
What if he went? What if he looked into those eyes and found only coldness? What if Suguru confirmed, with that sweet and calm voice, that he was nothing more than a toy? A damn tool? Satoru knew that if he saw coldness or indifference in those purple eyes, nothing would be left of him. He would become a hollow shell, a ghost trapped in the body of a mortal who was, and still is, worshipped and treated like a god.
— I’m a coward — he whispered, his voice cracking in the cold air — A pathetic, damn coward.
But cowardice wasn't his only excuse, nor was it his only defense. No, he simply no longer had the strength for a cruel truth.
With a mechanical movement, Satoru stood up. The world swayed for a moment as he teleported.
The air in the apartment he shared with Suguru smelled of green tea and his lover’s cologne. It was a scent that used to calm him, but now it made him nauseous.
To Satoru’s luck, Suguru was nowhere to be found in the apartment. Sighing, his vision slightly clouded from crying all night, Satoru moved like an automaton. He stripped, leaving his dirty clothes on the floor, and stepped into the shower. The hot water hit his skin, but it couldn't wash away the internal chill. He scrubbed his arms until the skin turned red, trying to remove a filth that wasn't physical.
Upon stepping out, he ignored the phone that continued to vibrate on the nightstand of their shared bedroom. He looked at the bed: one side was perfectly made, Suguru’s; the other was a mess of blankets, his. A contrast that now seemed like a premonition of their breakup.
He opened the wardrobe and bypassed his modern jackets and designer hoodies. He reached into the bottom drawer, at the very back, where he kept the shadows of his past. He hesitated for a brief five seconds before pulling out one of the traditional kimonos he had been forced to wear during his childhood and adolescence. The garments felt stiff and rough under his hands, too formal, too antiquated,but they were what he used to wear, what fit him best when he still lived under the yoke of the Gojo clan. It was his old attire as the heir and master of the damn Gojo clan.
Satoru never thought he would wear those clothes again, but given his new situation, he felt those ridiculous garments were fitting for his new role.
He held it in his hands for only a second longer before beginning to put the pieces on with almost religious precision.
Once changed and ready, Satoru didn't look back. He didn't pack anything. He left no notes, and with a small flick of his hand, he vanished, leaving behind his old room in near-complete silence, broken only by the continuous echo of his phone vibrating before the battery finally died.
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It was curious how a whole year without Satoru Gojo could change the entire jujutsu world.
No one knew exactly what had happened.
Satoru Gojo hadn't died, and he hadn't disappeared completely, as his name remained active in the records of Tokyo Jujutsu High. However, his missions were mere shadows. Satoru no longer accepted escort, investigation, or protection details. He only appeared when a Special Grade or a first-grade curse threatened to massacre humans and end the lives of other sorcerers.
Because of this, for an entire year, the only three times Gojo Satoru was seen again, he always arrived like a gust of icy wind. There were no jokes, no sweets, no arrogant smiles. The few witnesses said the strongest sorcerer moved with terrifying efficiency. His eyes, now always covered by a thicker black blindfold, looked at no one.
He would incapacitate the curse in seconds, with haunting efficiency, and before Suguru Geto could even get close, Satoru would always vanish.
It was terrifying for everyone to see what Satoru Gojo had become. They all felt a deep dread that, with this new side of the world's strongest sorcerer, the day would come when Gojo Satoru decided to turn against the world of jujutsu.
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In the mountainous outskirts of Tokyo, under a persistent rain, Suguru Geto walked through the school corridors with dark circles deeply marked on his face. He had spent the last three hundred and sixty-five days searching for Satoru. He had tracked every corner of Japan, interrogated the Gojo clan elders to the point of making threats of death and blood to ensure they understood that anything, anything, they knew had to be reported to him immediately, and he had followed every trace of cursed energy Satoru left behind.
But he was always late.
The only three times Satoru had been seen, Geto always found only an incapacitated curse, ready for him to exorcise and consume.
— Gone again? — Shoko asked, leaning against the morgue entrance. Her cigarette moved from side to side between her lips, the only visible sign of the anxiety and impatience running through her body.
Suguru didn't respond immediately. He looked at his own hands, the same hands that once held Satoru’s.
— I arrived five minutes late... — Suguru said, his voice a thread of contained desperation — He teleported before I got there... — Suguru rubbed his face hard — Dammit, Shoko, it’s as if he’s trying by every means to avoid being found or even tracked.
— That idiot... — she murmured, exhaling smoke — And he’s hiding specifically from you, Geto... — Shoko took another drag — This situation is shit, but it makes me wonder... what the hell happened that day in Director Yaga’s office? — Her voice turned slightly sharp with concern — There are reports saying that was the last day Gojo was near Yaga's office before disappearing.
Suguru closed his eyes tightly. That day... The day Satoru disappeared, he had been discussing with Director Yaga how to protect Satoru from the higher-ups who wanted to use him as an object. A weapon.
But Satoru never arrived. He never made his typical boisterous entrance.
— I don't know — Suguru rubbed his face again with more force, desperation eating away at him — But I’m going to find him — he promised, his eyes darkened by longing and despair — Even if I have to burn this whole damn world down, I’m going to find my other half, and if I have to, I’ll drag him back and ask him why the hell he decided to leave me alone in this hell.
Shoko looked at her friend with hidden concern and pity. She truly hoped Geto wouldn't destroy himself in the process.
— Whatever you say — she finally replied with a small sigh — Come on, we have a meeting in five minutes to discuss how to find your volatile, missing boyfriend.
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Winter in Tierra del Fuego was like nothing Satoru had ever experienced before. It is an ancient cold, a wind that doesn't just hit the skin but seems to want to tear the very essence from the bones. For anyone else, living in a cabin lost at the end of the world, where the Andes sink into the Antarctic sea, would be unbearable isolation. For Satoru Gojo, who had been living there for an entire year, it was the only place where the silence was vast enough to calm the noise of his own thoughts.
The cabin, built of dark wood and stone, was hidden in a valley where the lenga forests twisted under the weight of the snow. In that cold and beautiful province, there wasn't much of a population to talk to or live with, nor was there cursed energy other than his own, and Satoru was certainly grateful for that. At this point in his life, he preferred to be as alone as possible.
He sat on the porch, wrapped in a white silk kimono that had now become his daily uniform. He didn't feel the cold; Infinity took care of keeping his body temperature stable, creating a bubble of perpetual spring in the middle of the Patagonian winter. But even if his body was warm, his gaze, hidden behind a thick black linen blindfold, was fixed on the gray horizon where the sky merged with the Beagle Channel.
A year had passed. Three hundred and sixty-five days since the world he thought he had built with Suguru Geto disintegrated behind a carved wooden door.
During that year, Satoru had done something he never allowed himself to do. To rest, to remember without any kind of filter, and above all, to think.
In his first few weeks completely isolated in his cabin, his thoughts constantly returned to his parents. Their faces were blurred shadows in his memory, fragments of a warmth that was taken from him too soon. Thanks to the records he had stolen from the Gojo clan vaults when he was barely eight years old, having escaped his caretakers for a few hours, he knew the full truth. They hadn't died in an accident, nor by a curse.
They had been executed by their own blood.
He imagined the scene over and over: his parents, two sorcerers who didn't possess exceptional power but did possess a love that made them reckless, trying to flee with their own son, who had the misfortune of being born with the Six Eyes and Limitless in his arms. They had been willing to give up prestige, wealth, and the protection of the clan so that Satoru could simply be a child. They wanted him to know the taste of sweets before the weight of responsibility; to know what it was like to run through a field of flowers without calculating the flow of cursed energy in every petal.
— They died trying to give me a life that I ended up despising myself — Satoru whispered to the howling wind.
That unconditional sacrifice contrasted painfully with his current reality. His parents had died so that he wouldn't be a weapon, and yet, he had let himself be molded by the world until he became exactly that. Worse still, he had let himself be convinced by Suguru that they were "the strongest," an indivisible unit, only to discover that, for the other half of that unit, he was just a fucking weapon.
That realization led him to rethink his role in the jujutsu hierarchy. During his months of meditation in Argentine Patagonia, Satoru understood an uncomfortable truth: his very existence was stifling the growth of others.
«If the sun shines twenty-four hours a day, the other plants never learn to seek their own light» he thought with bitter lucidity.
By intervening in every mission, by sweeping away every grade one or two curse with a snap of his fingers, he was raising a generation of mediocre and dependent sorcerers. He was creating a world where, if he were ever gone, everything would collapse in seconds. So, he made a decision. He would only return to Japan when the situation was critical. He would only act if others failed or if the threat was too powerful. In this way, he would let them bleed a little, let them struggle, let them progress.
Let them become strong enough so that they no longer needed a Satoru Gojo in their lives.
Watching the sky slowly darken, Satoru thought of his dear students and his colleagues.
He knew that everyone saw him as something less than human, consciously or unconsciously, and that fact always made his heart ache. Because even if he didn't say it openly, Satoru always cared and loved them all very much.
He always saw his colleagues as good friends; he always tried to spend time with them, and although most of the time they never accepted because they were "busy," Satoru accepted it with a smile. Because he knew "busy" actually meant "I feel uncomfortable around you," and though it hurt, Satoru accepted it. Because really, what was he supposed to do? Force them? Yes, he could do it, and no one would question it much because obviously that would be something the "childish Gojo" would do. But Satoru was tired of this constant pattern, and he really only wanted to go out if others truly wanted to be with him.
This, obviously, never happened as Satoru wished, and if it did, it was always because Suguru convinced everyone.
Before his thoughts could go to a darker, more problematic place, Satoru forced himself to think of his students.
His students.
God, how he loves those kids. Each and every one of his dear students holds a very special place in Satoru’s heart, and it is for this very reason that it hurts him so much to think that they too, unconsciously, see him as something that is less than human.
Satoru knows perfectly well they don't do it on purpose. Of course they don't. He was the one who made his students always see him that way; after all, how can you genuinely care about someone who seems and looks so strong, untouchable, and terrifyingly powerful?
It was obvious that in the long run, everyone would see him as nothing less than a damn weapon.
Despite these coherent thoughts, Satoru couldn't help but feel a pang of pain in his heart when thinking of Yuji-kun and Yuta-kun. Thinking that those two sweet boys might see him the same way made his stomach churn violently.
No. If Satoru analyzed all his moments with them in absolute detail, he could say with absolute certainty that they never saw him as anything other than their sensei.
It was curious how two boys he had known for a short time could see him as a human, as their dear sensei, but his own children...
A shaky sigh escaped his pressed lips as he thought of his children.
Gumi-kun and Miki-chan.
From the day he met them and took them to live with him, Satoru quickly grew fond of them; he loved them as if they were his own blood, though he never knew if the feeling was mutual or if they just saw him as a guardian more competent than that bastard Toji Fushiguro.
Of course, Tsumiki-chan was always polite and more affectionate with him, but she always kept her distance; there was always a small line drawn that he never dared to cross for fear that his princess, his beloved girl, would confirm she never saw him as a father, that to her, he was just her guardian.
Then there was Megumi-kun.
Although the boy was always more surly and indifferent toward him, Satoru could tell that his little boy loved him. Although just like with the others, Gojo realized that little by little Megumi-kun was beginning to see him as someone untouchable, as something so powerful it bordered on the inhuman.
Satoru never blamed him for this; he knew it was the image he always projected and that even if he had raised the boy since he was young, it was something that would eventually happen, like it or not.
Thinking of his children, Satoru couldn't help but think of the Hasaba twins.
Two beautiful and sweet girls who were rescued by Suguru, and although Mimiko and Nanako have always been sweet and obedient girls, as the years passed, they stopped calling Suguru "Geto-sama" and started calling him "Oto-san."
Obviously, Suguru was incredibly touched when this happened, and although Satoru felt very happy for his boyfriend’s achievement, he couldn't help the small pang of envy and pain he felt.
Because he also loved those girls as if they were his own daughters, just as Suguru also loved Satoru's children as if they were his own. And despite all the time spent living together, caring for, and loving his children, they never stopped calling him "Gojo," "Gojo-san," and "Gojo-sama."
Suguru always comforted him, assured him he just had to wait, that he shouldn't pressure them. But the years passed, and each day he felt more and more hopeless.
Even though this hurt him deeply, Satoru always smiled and avoided showing his bitter feelings because Suguru was by his side.
Suguru...
Satoru bit his lower lip hard until he felt his blood run from it. He hated himself and felt pathetic, like a damn shadow of the man he used to be. He could easily destroy cities, he could do anything he set his mind to, but he couldn't erase the trace of a single man from his system.
And on the darkest nights, when the wind made the cabin beams creak, Satoru found himself imagining painful and impossible scenarios.
He imagined the cabin door opening and Suguru walking in, his hair soaked with snow and that tired look he used to have after absorbing too many curses. He imagined Suguru walking toward him, kneeling, and with that voice that was always his anchor, asking for forgiveness.
«If he came right now...» Satoru thought, clenching his fists over his knees. «If he just crossed that threshold and told me he was wrong, that he needs me not as a weapon, but as Satoru... I would forgive him»
It was a humiliating truth. He would forgive him in a heartbeat. He would return to Tokyo, wear his white silk blindfolds again and eat sweets, laugh at his jokes again just to feel the warmth of his body near his own. Because, despite the betrayal, despite the year of silence and the mask of coldness he had built, he loved him with every atom of his being. His love for Suguru Geto was the only curse Satoru Gojo couldn't exorcise.
A small and fleeting tear slipped without permission from his left eye and was quickly absorbed by his black blindfold. Satoru huffed and gave his neck a sharp pinch, completely indignant and frustrated that he still had tears to shed.
Gojo stood up with deliberate slowness from the wooden bench at his doorstep when he felt the slight change in air pressure. A disturbance in the flow of cursed energy that he recognized instantly, even ten thousand kilometers away from its origin.
Shinjuku was under attack by four Special Grade curses of a magnitude not seen in decades.
His white kimono billowed in the wind as he raised one of his hands to adjust his blindfold.
the time for mourning his pathetic life at the end of the world was over. The weapon had to return to its duty.
With a thought, the space around him compressed. The cabin in Tierra del Fuego was left empty, leaving only the echo of a sigh and the trace of a lament that the Argentine cold took care to erase.
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The Tokyo sky wasn't violet this time; it was an ashen gray, suffocated by a dense veil that separated civilians from the horror unfolding in the center of the city. The air vibrated with an unnatural temperature.
It had all been a very elaborate plan. Four Special Grade curses had agreed months ago to attack now that Satoru Gojo had decided to abandon his duties as the strongest sorcerer.
Jogo's volcanic heat clashed against the stifling forest pressure of Hanami.
Nanami Kento, his suit torn and his watch marking the overtime he never wanted to work, stepped back, covering the flank of a Yu Haibara who was breathing with difficulty. In front of them, Jogo laughed, his volcanic head emitting a heat that melted the asphalt, while Hanami extended roots that sprouted from the concrete cracks like biological spears.
— It’s useless — Jogo hissed, preparing a stream of lava — The strongest sorcerer has abandoned you — He mocked — Now you’re just meat for the slaughter.
— Shut up, Mt. Fuji head! — Yuji shouted between heavy gasps.
Nanami looked with deep guilt and concern at all the children who were unfortunate enough to have to deal with these monsters. Then, almost fleetingly, he looked at Haibara.
— Yu! If we get out of this, you owe me a three-month vacation! — Nanami grumbled in an attempt to clear his mind and focus on eliminating those vile curses.
— Deal! But first we have to survive to do it! — Haibara responded with a tense smile, brandishing his weapon to protect the students.
A few meters away, Maki Zen'in spun her spear with trembling but firm hands, flanked by the muscle mass of Aoi Todo and a Yuji Itadori whose fists were already glowing with Black Flash, though his eyes showed the exhaustion of someone who has seen too much death in a single night.
— Dammit! — Maki shouted, seeing her spear splinter against Hanami’s wooden armor — They’re too fast!
In another sector, the situation was even more desperate. Nobara Kugisaki’s face was splattered with blood, holding her hammer with white knuckles while Megumi Fushiguro tried to maintain the stability of his Shadows against Dagon's domain expansion. Near them, Toge Inumaki coughed blood after having abused his Cursed Speech, while Mahito slid through the shadows with a childish and psychopathic smile, stretching his deformed hands toward the students' souls.
— Die, die, die! — Mahito sang. His fingers were millimeters from Nobara’s face when suddenly his entire right arm was torn off by a mass of red cursed energy.
The entire bloody battle stopped in an instant; the Special Grade curses froze immediately upon feeling that icy, pure, and absolutely powerful presence.
Gojo Satoru had arrived, and he was not happy at all.
The man known as "the strongest sorcerer in the world" descended from the sky like a bolt of white light. Gojo stood still for a few short seconds before looking at each of the curses as if they were just shit on his shoes.
Without being able to help it, the four Special Grade curses recoiled in pure instinctive terror.
— GOJO-SENSEI!! — Yuji’s scream tore through the silence, filled with absolute joy and emotion.
— FINALLY YOU’RE HERE, IDIOT!! — Nobara shrieked, though her eyes shone with immense relief.
— Tuna mayo! — Inumaki exclaimed, falling to his knees from exhaustion but with renewed hope.
Megumi, Maki, and Todo relaxed their bodies and exhaled long sighs, feeling the weight of the world lifted from their shoulders. Nanami closed his eyes for a second, thanking fate, while Haibara let out a laugh that was half nerves and half excitement.
— I’ll only ask once — Satoru Gojo’s cold and emotionless voice surprised and unsettled all the sorcerers. None of them were prepared to hear someone as cheerful and carefree as Gojo speak in such a serious and dark tone — Nanami, Haibara... — The mentioned couldn't help a shiver of uncertainty and fear upon hearing their names come so coldly and seriously from Gojo’s lips — Get everyone out of here. I don't want anyone within a sixty-meter radius.
— Go-Gojo-sensei...? — Yuji Itadori’s doubtful and worried voice was heard loud and clear in the deathly silence caused by the strongest sorcerer’s arrival.
— Now! — he bellowed in a tone that brokered no argument.
Haibara and Nanami looked at each other briefly before nodding and following Gojo’s instructions.
— Maki, Inumaki, Todo! With me! — Nanami ordered — Haibara, take the first-years! — he shouted as they began the tactical retreat.
Yu Haibara, despite his exhaustion, nodded firmly, gathering Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara.
The students, though they wanted to fight, instinctively obeyed the direct order of the strongest man. They knew that if Gojo Satoru asked them to leave, it was because what was coming was not fit for spectators.
In a matter of seconds, the area was cleared of allied sorcerers. Only Satoru and the four Special Grade curses remained.
Jogo, Hanami, Dagon, and Mahito looked at each other with uncertainty; they could feel the pressure increasing to the point of suffocating them.
— You think because you’re alone... — Jogo began, but his voice died out almost instantly.
Satoru moved with a terrifying calm.
«Shit...!» was the collective thought of the four curses before, with a circular movement of his hands, Satoru Gojo utilized a reverse application of Limitless, generating a centripetal force of attraction so powerful that the four curses were sucked toward a central point, becoming grouped and trapped against each other in a forced embrace of flesh and cursed energy. They were immobilized, crushed by the gravity Satoru controlled at will.
Satoru's actions were clear: End this immediately.
Those filthy and annoying curses that dared to try and touch the people he cared for didn't deserve another second of existence.
He brought his fingers into the seal position. With a firm and completely terrifying voice, Satoru Gojo exclaimed
— Domain Expansion: Infinite Void
The world turned monochromatic before exploding into the infinite blue of his mind. The domain enveloped the four curses instantly. Jogo, Hanami, Dagon, and Mahito were frozen in time and space, their minds flooded by an infinite amount of information that paralyzed their nervous systems and nullified any trace of will or cursed power. They were hollow shells, at the mercy of their executioner.
Satoru dissolved the domain after a few seconds, just enough time to leave them permanently incapacitated but not yet to exorcise them. The curses, now barely able to stand, staggered like drunks with vacant gazes.
Satoru took a step back, his kimono billowing with icy elegance. It was time for the final act.
He raised his right hand, joining his thumb and index finger, and began to recite the incantation for his most devastating technique.
— Imaginary Technique... — the cursed energy began to concentrate with an intensity that made the air vibrate — Hollow Purp- — The word cut off in his throat.
His Six Eyes perceived something that wasn't in the plan. A familiar vibration. A cursed energy he had longed for and feared to feel again.
It was Suguru, and he was close. Very close.
Satoru stopped dead. His hand, charged with the energy capable of erasing existence, trembled slightly. Purple could vaporize the curses, yes, but it would also erase the trace of energy that Suguru could absorb to become even stronger.
A spark of bitter understanding flashed in his mind. Suguru Geto, the user of Cursed Spirit Manipulation, was here. And in front of Satoru were four Special Grades, completely incapacitated, ready to be absorbed without resistance.
A bitter and barely perceptible smile curved Satoru’s lips. He lowered his hand, undoing the technique.
Satoru simply stayed there, floating a few inches off the ground, waiting. He didn't have to wait long.
Suguru Geto appeared among the rubble, his face distorted, cold sweat running down his forehead, and his breathing erratic. His eyes scanned the place until they fixed on the four Special Grade figures staggering, and then on the figure in white guarding them.
Their gazes met across the distance and time.
Suguru didn't think about it. It wasn't his own decision. It was just a pure, raw, and visceral instinct guided and produced by the habit of years and years of having done the same thing. Seeing four Special Grade curses so vulnerable, his cursed technique reacted before his rational mind. Suguru extended both hands, and a tide of dark and corrupt energy emanated from him, enveloping the four incapacitated curses one by one.
— Guh... — Suguru swallowed hard, the taste of vomit and old rags flooding his mouth as the four curses compressed into jet-black spheres and flew into his hands. He swallowed them one by one, the power flowing through him, stabilizing him despite the disgust.
Satoru watched the process in silence. He had let those abominations live just so Suguru could take them and become stronger.
«After all... Suguru needs to become stronger now that I’m no longer always to the rescue» Satoru thought somewhat distractedly.
Suguru, once he had absorbed the last trace of power, stood there panting. He didn't look at Shoko, who had just arrived at the perimeter, nor at Yaga, who watched from afar.
His attention was completely fixed on Satoru.
Seeing how Satoru was already starting to levitate to leave, to disappear again to some place forgotten by the world, Suguru’s body moved before his mind.
He ran toward Satoru, and even though Satoru knew he should leave, that he shouldn't let Suguru touch him, he couldn't help it.
Suguru Geto is the man he had loved most and still loved with an intensity that burned his insides. So when Suguru lunged forward and wrapped his arms around Satoru’s waist from behind, burying his face in the back of the white kimono, Satoru knew he had already lost the war.
— Satoru! — Suguru’s voice broke, sounding hoarse and wet — Don't you dare leave again! Please... for whatever you love most! Just... let's talk. Five minutes. Please — he pleaded, squeezing Satoru’s waist so hard his knuckles turned white from pure desperation.
Hearing Suguru like that and feeling the desperation so palpable in the other man only caused Satoru to freeze.
He knew perfectly well that he could use Infinity to repel him, that he could have teleported at the speed of light. But Suguru's warmth against his back, the trembling of his hands, and that desperate plea disarmed each of his defenses. Satoru felt himself dying and being born at the same time. He was too weak against him; he always would be.
— Five minutes, Suguru — Satoru whispered in a voice that was barely an echo.
Before anyone else could approach, space folded in on itself.
In the blink of an eye, the noise of Tokyo, the cries of relief, and the smell of ash disappeared.
The absolute silence of Patagonia welcomed them. Now standing on the porch of the cabin, under a soft snowfall that was beginning to cover everything, Satoru had to face the man who, for better or worse, was capable of changing and altering his life forever.
And Suguru, feeling the tension in his beloved's body, tightened his strong, large arms even more around Satoru’s narrow waist.
Now that he finally had a chance, Suguru was not going to let Satoru escape. If necessary, Suguru was willing to lock Satoru up and chain him, so that he would never abandon him again.